Canadian Speculative Fiction
- Canadian SF Forum
- Discussion forum discuss various types
of Canadian SF literature, and announces events, conventions,
readings, etc.. Good for current news and views.
- Made in Canada
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Information on Canadian SF authors, actors, filmakers, and other media, kept reasonably up to date. Winner of the 2000 Aurora Award for "Fan Other" Catagory. Annoying commercial pop up screens are a small price to pay for a generally excellent site. Useful supplement, or alternative, to this site.
- Yet Another book Review Site
- Ralph Brigg's book review site features a section on Canadian SF with links to author pages, bibliographies, etc.
- Out of This World
- Exhibit of the National Library of Canada on Canadian SF and fantasy, which opened May 13, 1995. Although the exhibit has expired, the web page is still available. A companion volume of critical and historical essays on Canadian SF is available from Quarry Press (in both French and English editions) The success of the Out of This World volume led Quarry Press to launch its own SF imprint, Out of This World Books (see Quarry Press below).
- Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.
- Sponsors the aurora award.
- polestar
- (retail site associated with amizon.com) has additional information on canadian SF.
- Robert Runté
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- "The Lost Valley of Adanac",
Guest Editorial, On Spec Magazine, Spring, 1997;
Essay on Canadian SF and National Identity
- "Afterword" from Tesseract5
state of Canadian SF address, 1996
- "Why I Read American SF reprinted from Prairie Fire 15:2 (Summer 1994)
- Robert J. Sawyer
- Sawyer's personal website, while obviously self-promotional, is undeniably one of the primary sites for information on Canadian SF. For example, Rob reprints his long running Canadian SF newscolumns, which provide an excellent historical resource. A good site to contrast with the NCF Guide as Sawyer takes the opposite position on many issues.
- SF Canada
- Canada's national SF writers association web site has much of interest to non-members, including current news (it is a blog, so it really is current), author pages, and so on. Edited by Edward Willett.
For individual author pages, see List of Author Listings; authors whose names are highlighted (blue type and underlined in most browsers) have their own home page.
Writers' Groups
- SF Canada
- Canada's national SF writers association
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The Lonely Cry
- marketing group of nine Canadian SF writers, publishes a newsletter and maintains this web site.
- Edge Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing
- Callgary; Publisher: Briann Hades. Well established as an excellent independent press publishing such award-winning books as Marie Jakober's The Black Chalice, their Canadian SF content increased significantly with the acquisition of the Tesseract Books imprint in 2003 (see below). Brian Hades.
- Tesseract Books
- Largest and oldest Canadian SF imprint, Tesseract Books started out as an imprint of Press Porcepic (Victoria), was taken over and expanded by the Books Collective (Edmonton), before being acqired by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing (Calgary) in 2003. Responsible for Tesseracts the semi-annual anthology of Canadian speculative fiction, Tesseract Books has also published two dozen novels and collections by various Canadian SF authors, often giving such critically acclaimed authors as Sean Stewart, Candas Jane Dorsey, and Elizabeth Vonarburg (in translation) their first mass market exposure.
- Dragon Moon Press
- Calgary; Publisher: Gwen Gades. Dragon Moon Press has both developed a stable of new fantasy writers and produced the wildly popular The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy series, but includes only one Canadian writer (J. Y. Kennedy) so far. Nevertheless, an energetic small press with an international reputation.
- Thistledown Press
- Saskatchewan based publisher includes many SF and young adult fantasy titles. They are also one of the few publishers to provide Teacher resource guides for many of their titles.
- Quarry Press
- Quarry Press' SF imprint is Out of This World Books, P.O. Box 1061, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 4Y5 Phone (613) 548-8429. Email info@quarrypress.com. Series editor is horror writer, Edo van Belkom. Has several titles of potential interest to Canadian SF readers, including: Out of This World: Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy, (historical and critical essays edited by Andrea Paradis); Northern Dreamers, interviews with 22 Canadian SF writers by Edo van Belkom; Aurora Awards (anthology of winning stories); Northern Horror edited by Edo van Belkom; Trapdoor to Heaven timetravel/reincarnation novel by Lesley Choyce; and Death Drives a Semi horror stories by Edo van Belkom. No, website, though.
- Trifolium Books
- Toronto (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) publisher of university and school textbooks has two titles of interest to SF readers: No Limits: Developing Scientific Literacy Using Science Fiction; and it's companion anthology Packing Fraction and Other Tales of Science & Imagination, both by Julie E. Czerneda. (See "Teaching Canadian SF" for details.)
- Tor Books
- Largely thanks to editor David Hartwell, Tor Books has been very active in seeking out and publishing "new" Canadian writers and has brought out two volumes in an excellent series of reprint anthologies of Canadian SF (Norther Stars, and Northern Suns).
- Del Rey
- Went through a phase of finding and publishing Canadian writers, most notably Dave Duncan (moved to Tor in 2004), but has been less active recently.
- DAW
- Canadian SF writers are well represented among the ranks of DAW authors.
- Baen Books
- Tends towards militaristic, politically conservative hard science fiction and sword and sorcery fantasy. Canadians are well represented in both these subgenres.
Neo-opsis
Victoria: Editor; Karl Johanson. Canada's newsest SF magazine, is distinguished by Karl's off the wall science columns and editorials. It's paid circulation has already exceeded better established magazines and accumulated excellent reviews. Issue 6 came out in May 2005.
Challenging DestinyOntario; Editor: David M. Switzer.
Canadian SF & F magazine, publishes short fiction by Canadian and non-Canadian, and interviews with Canadian authors. formerly a print magazine, now exclusively an e-mag available thruogh Fictionwise. Issue 21 came out in June 2005.
On Spec MagazineEdmonton; General Editor: Diane Walton.
Canada's longest running SF &f magazine (Spring 2005 is #60, Vol 17). Tends towards literary end of the field, though it is hard to generalize since it is edited by a collective whose tastes differ wildly.
Transversions
Ontario: Editors Marcel Gagné & Sally Tomasevic (originally Sally McBride and Dale Sproule). Published high quality literary SF &F and horror; changed to anthology format in last incarnation. Ceased publication, but worth looking for back issues if you can find them.
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- Amazon.ca and
Amazon.com
- OKay, not a Canadian store, but included here as a convenient link to large mail order selection. But maybe try supporting Canadian speciality stores first:
- Bakka
- Toronto, oldest SF specialty store in Canada (no web page)
- Chapters/Indigo
- Okay, not an SF speciality store either, but mail order operation carries good selection of Canadian SF and reasonably supportive of Canadian authors
- House of SF
- Ottawa (no website)
- Sentry Books
- Calgary
- White Drawf
- 4368 West Tenth Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6R 2H7 (604)-228-8223Vancouver. Established in 1978, carries only new books and issues mail-order catalogs quarterly.
Three of the major research quality library collections of SF are located in Canada:
- The Merril Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy"
- Founded in the 1960s as the "Spaced Out Library" by the Toronto Public Library and the late Judith Merril, it attracts SF scholars from around the world. Current head librarian is Lorna Toolis, co-editor of Tesseracts4.
- The Ward Chipman Collection of the University of New Brunswick.
- Although much less well known in Canada then the Merril Collection, The Ward Chipman collection has been designated by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as one of its two official depositories. Excellent web page of SF references.
- science fiction research collection of the University of Alberta
- the newest collection (reorganized in 1999) is at the University of Alberta and includes a number of subsidiary collections acquired over the past decade or more. These include: a near-definitive collection of the science fiction of L.Ron Hubbard (i.e., exclusive of dienetics and scientology) including 'pulps' in pristine condition as well as first editions of his novels in both hard- and paper-bound formats, and the archives of local s-f conventions and societies.
Note that all three libraries will consider trading a tax receipt for published and archival material donated to them by collectors.
- Links to Canadian SF Clubs
- Links to Canadian fanzines
- The Canadian Fancyclopedia
- An Incompleat GuideTo Twentieth Century Canadian Science Fiction Fandom by Richard Graeme Cameron, BCSFA Archivist; a publication of the British Columbia Science Fiction Association
- National Science Fiction and Fantasy Association
- Formed in 1994 as a national lobby group, it was forced to disband in 1999 when burnout claimed too many of its key members to sustain critical mass. Even though the formal organization has been disbanded, the web site it started has continued on and remains a useful source of Canadian SF news.
- Friends of the Merril Collection
- Lobby and support group for the Merrill Collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction (formerly the Spaced Out Library -- founded by Judith Merril in the late 1960s, it is one of the best SF research collections in the world (see below).
- Royal Swiss Navy
- Long time fan Garth Spencer's extensive fan pages devoted in large part to Canadian content. Provides an alternative view to material presented on this site. (Garth Spencer took over publishing the national SF newsletter under the title Maple Leaf Rag when NCF went from newsletter to genzine format. [His print newsletter was superceded by Michael Skeet's MLR which was in turn replaced by Under the Ozone Hole (most recent issue June 2005).] Garth continues the Maple Leaf Rag tradition on the Royal Swiss Navy ezine.)
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- Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base
- One of the best on-line resources
- www.allreaders.com
- A database of popular fiction reviews searchable by topic and category -- e.g., you could ask for a character-driven time travel story dealing with the 1800s, and it would find it for you.
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